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Welcome to PSR's Environmental Health Policy
Institute, where we ask questions -- then we ask the experts to
answer them. Join us as physicians, health professionals,
and environmental health experts share their ideas, inspiration, and
analysis about toxic chemicals and environmental health policy.

The Wolf in Zero Carbon Clothing

An historic crossover took place in North Carolina in 2010:
the cost of electricity per kilowatt hour generated from photovoltaics (PV),
after steadily falling for decades, rivaled that of nuclear power. After 2010,
PV electricity is projected to be less expensive in the state than that of
nuclear, with a trend of rapidly divergent costs between the two energy
sources.

Why is this significant for climate change and energy policy
choices? Policy talk about a “nuclear renaissance” abounds nationally and
internationally, given the growing specter of climate change. Nuclear power is touted
as a zero carbon energy source and then
bundled in with renewable energy technologies as the suite of clean
energy technologies we must pursue to eliminate climate-change driving CO2
emissions.

But nuclear energy is a wolf in zero carbon clothing whose
environmental health, international security, and economic impacts outweigh its
energy benefits. In its life cycle, nuclear power generates radioactive
tailings at mine and mill sites and creates spent nuclear fuel with no disposal
solution. Nuclear power plants routinely release small amounts of radioactive
isotopes during operation, and they can release large amounts during accidents.
In this era of unconventional war, power plants are vulnerable to sabotage and
attack; and existing evacuation plans in case of nuclear power plant accident
are widely known to be unrealistic paper exercises. Energy reliance on water-intensive
technologies is a fateful relationship, as illustrated in the summer, 2003,
heat wave that gripped half of Europe and caused a record number of deaths. The
prolonged heat wave triggered a water shortage resulting in insufficient water
for electricity production for air conditioning. Hydropower production declined
and nuclear power plants shut down causing industrial activity shutdowns, computers
crashes, and harvest failures. Finally, nuclear power reactors generate the
fissile materials enriched to fuel nuclear bombs and inevitably create the risk
of nuclear weapons development.

What, then, are the possibilities for a carbon-free future? For
one, the U.S. can emulate the commitment to conservation, mandatory green
building design, renewable energy technologies and fuel efficient practices in
Europe which has reduced the average carbon use per capita to one-half that of
the average American. Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S.
Energy Policy, a study from the Nuclear Policy Research
Institute and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, lays out a
carbon-free and nuclear-free roadmap for U.S. energy policy. In it, Arjun
Makhijani analyzes more than 25 available and nearly available renewable
technologies, green building design, high efficiency vehicles and fuels for
readiness for large-scale use, next steps for large-scale implementation, and
CO2 abatement costs. The overarching finding is that “a zero-CO2 energy economy
can be achieved within the next thirty to fifty years without the use of
nuclear power.” Further, their study found that eliminating CO2 emissions can
be achieved with “available or foreseeable technologies,” at affordable cost,
without buying carbon credits from other countries, and with phasing out oil
imports within 25 years.

In 1980 I designed a passive solar house, based on my environmental
engineering masters’ thesis. My builder was eager to learn solar design and
went on to build dozens of similar houses over the next year. Federal and state
tax credits for solar heating stimulated local industry and jobs, including
small building businesses, a rooftop solar hot water heater build/install
industry, and so on. By the end of 1981, solar tax credits were eliminated by
the Reagan administration, demand for solar house design declined, new niche
solar companies closed up shop, and reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear energy
was re-instated as the direction of US energy policy. Conclusion: federal and
state policy is a determining factor in sustainable energy and our climate
future, together with social demand and business initiatives.